Guidelines for Using Windchill Navigate with Windchill+
The following guidelines are designed to help ensure Windchill Navigate (formerly ThingWorx Navigate) environments securely integrate with Windchill+. Make sure you review these guidelines before creating any Windchill Navigate custom applications for Windchill+.
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Windchill+ releases support Windchill Navigate (formerly ThingWorx Navigate) Connected PLM custom applications. These guidelines aim to help customers enhance efficiency by following best practices while developing their custom applications, ensuring smoother and more streamlined upgrades.
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Mandatory
• All Windchill Navigate instances (development, QA, and production) for PTC Cloud Windchill+ environments must be hosted by PTC.
• Adhering to WRS and Windchill+ customization guardrails (including secure coding practices). For details, review Windchill+ Guidelines and Guardrails.
Allowed
• Custom applications are expected to be built using Windchill Navigate OOTB web components or ThingWorx OOTB widgets from the Standard category.
◦ For detailed steps, refer to the Overview of Windchill Navigate Components topic from the Windchill Navigate Help Center.
• Building custom applications for Windchill must be built using the OData connector with Windchill REST Services (WRS).
◦ It is highly recommended to use a copy of the OOTB Windchill Connector for building any custom applications using its OOTB services on the Connector.
• Building custom applications in Windchill Navigate to make an outbound call to a third-party system like SAP, ERP, and so on to retrieve data, must use an HTTP connector, OData Connector (preferred), or Swagger Connector (preferred).
• Windchill Navigate Custom Applications must use the defined Authentication Type in the Connectors.
• It is recommended that custom applications are only published in the CUSTOM TASKS COLLECTION.
• Embedding ThingWorx mashups can be used as a Windchill popup window or embedded Windchill Tabs. For more information, see the "Popup vs Embedded in Page" section in Creating a New ThingWorx Action in the Model.
• ThingView widget bundled with Windchill Navigate, must be used out-of-the-box with no customization made to the widget.
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Contact PTC to configure Clickjack Support in ThingWorx. After configuring the Clickjack filters, you can create action models by referring to Creating a New ThingWorx Action in the Model.
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Prohibited
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As additional capabilities are gradually added to Windchill+ offering, these prohibitions will be relaxed.
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• Accessing the ThingWorx database in any way for staging data or to be used as a storage replica.
• Custom Apps built for integration with third-party systems (like SAP or ERP) or databases using any method other than the approved Thingworx Connectors listed above.
• Using connectivity to a third-party system hosted on-prem via a VPN (Virtual Private Network) or VPC (Virtual Private Cloud).
• Use of Vanity URLs (Customer Domains) instead of PTC Cloud-hosted URLs.
• Allocating, using the Application Keys capability for any inbound connections from any third-party systems, physical devices or services.
• Modifying or deleting users and application keys that may exist in the deployment used by PTC.
• Use of any third-party libraries in Custom Applications, excluding the ones allowed by Windchill+ and ThingWorx. For more information, see Allowed Customization.
◦ PTC recommends using the latest maintenance release version of the third-party libraries, to ensure compliance with the latest security updates.
◦ For details, review the ThingWorx Maintenance Release Policy for 3rd-Party Software article.
• Custom Applications connecting to any physical devices.
• Reuse of OOTB Windchill Navigate entities (Things, Thing Template, Mashup, Data Shapes etc.) in custom applications on Production systems.
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